Me: (Chinese) Wow, nice uniforms.
Mitch: (Chinese) Thanks.
Me: (Chinese) So, when do you guys have to start wearing them?
Mitch: (English) I don’t know.
“Omg!” I thought to myself. “How does he know how to say that? I taught him something. Go me!” Then I tried to think of where ‘I don’t know’ is in the textbook. Hmm on second thought that sentence isn’t part of the curriculum at all. Oh yeah I remember now, ‘I don’t know’ is my M.O. response to most questions posed to me in Chinese.
Still…go me!
Coming back from a month-long vacation was no easy feat. I had to leave a good friend, the sun, and slightly less polluted air. The first week back was rough to say the least. I definitely mulled over the idea of packing up my things and getting the hell out of Dodge but in the end I stayed. I’ve been back for over a month now and I’m feeling a lot better. Better is an understatement. I feel motivated, happy, and generally in love with life. My saving grace: “I don’t hate it here, it’s just hard…really hard.” Once I took that to heart I felt like I could do anything. I don’t hate it here. There are hard days and sometimes those days align with a certain time of the month but I always remind myself of all the things that I do like here in Chendian.
Here are a few:
![Note from Jordan. I appreciate her specificity ‘open here [arrow]’. She learned that from me.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0vj6267QO1qa2efso1_1280.jpg)
